It's not necessarily incompatible with the conventional COIN wisdom as while non-kinetic effects.etc are important they can't be achieved unless you kill enough enemy to inhibit their Ops and prevent them disrupting you when you're working to get the locals onside. Unless you have security nation building will be impossible. Additionally while its key to get the locals onside a large proportion of the enemy will never be convinced by our persuasion so need to be eliminated at some point anyway.

I think the guy has a point in that we have poor mobility in relation to the enemy, however that is a product of our way of war which is casualty averse and neccesitates use of body armour, heavily armoured vehicles, indirect fire.etc. We shouldn't abandon this as our only real advantage at the moment is due to our doctrine we win almost all of our tactical engagements and politically high casualties are unacceptable. What it comes down to is we need a vast increase in troop numbers and then mobility is less of an issue as units would have smaller AOs and can be more responsive. A greater number of troops would also reduce the requirement for regular moves which expose us to IEDs which are probably the greatest threat we face.

It's not necessarily incompatible with the conventional COIN wisdom as while non-kinetic effects.etc are important they can't be achieved unless you kill enough enemy to inhibit their Ops and prevent them disrupting you when you're working to get the locals onside. Unless you have security nation building will be impossible. Additionally while its key to get the locals onside a large proportion of the enemy will never be convinced by our persuasion so need to be eliminated at some point anyway.

I think the guy has a point in that we have poor mobility in relation to the enemy, however that is a product of our way of war which is casualty averse and neccesitates use of body armour, heavily armoured vehicles, indirect fire.etc. We shouldn't abandon this as our only real advantage at the moment is due to our doctrine we win almost all of our tactical engagements and politically high casualties are unacceptable. What it comes down to is we need a vast increase in troop numbers and then mobility is less of an issue as units would have smaller AOs and can be more responsive. A greater number of troops would also reduce the requirement for regular moves which expose us to IEDs which are probably the greatest threat we face.

Click to expand...

If I recall correctly our involvement in Afghanistan is part of Blairâs policy of âliberal interventionâ.

I feel that if one of the main tactical methods is indirect fire, the concept of âliberalâ will probably not be fully understood by the unintended victims and their families.

A greater number of troops would also reduce the requirement for regular moves which expose us to IEDs which are probably the greatest threat we face.

Click to expand...

Isnt the flip side of that coin a massive increase in material required to sustain the force, so lots more logistics all round that requires an excess of protection for those combat logistics patrols. Are we in danger with the perceived wisdom of more boots on the ground creating a sustainment nightmare as more resources are devoted to keeping an increased force in bombs, bullets, water, batteries and everything else.